


House of Wolves

by proudspires



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: ? Maybe?, Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Drug Use, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers to Enemies, F/M, Fluff, Morally Ambiguous Protagonist, Not always canon compliant, One Shot, Romance, Some religious blasphemy, canon? I hardly know her, sorry lmfao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27701314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudspires/pseuds/proudspires
Summary: A collection of Far Cry 5 drabbles and oneshots featured on mytumblr.Mostly John Seed/F!Deputy centric, and mostly set in the Ancient Names universe, but differing parts will be tagged and labeled appropriately.
Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/John Seed, John Seed/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was so lucky to have a few wonderful people send me some writing prompts and now have a handful of oneshots with nowhere to go―so they're here!
> 
> Taken from [this list](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/post/635140686059044864/prompt-list-1), John/Elliot + “Is that my shirt?” “You mean our shirt?”

**"Is that my shirt?"**

It was. He didn’t need to ask. But despite the innate knowledge that Elliot Honeysett, vitriol-extraordinaire, was sporting one of _his_ button-ups, the words came out of him anyway.

Elliot glanced at him only briefly. She was tucked up on the twin bed they’d been sharing—a crime in and of itself, John thought, if ever there was one—and he recognized the dark blue article of clothing almost instantly. It was barely on her, all things considered. A few of the buttons haphazardly thrown together; one bare leg stretched out over the edge of the bed, brushing the floor; the elegant jut of her collarbone and shoulder exposed where the stiff collar of the shirt shied away from her skin and tried to slump over her shoulder. Late-afternoon light slanted through the curtains hanging on the windows, bathing the room in an amber glow.

 _Oh, yes,_ he thought absently, _that is my shirt, and that’s my Elliot sitting in it._ It was a terribly domestic thing, if he considered it very much—like they had been dating for a while, like the world wasn’t trying to fall apart around them, like she hadn’t a week and a half ago promised to rip his eyes out. Treacherous, but only for a little bit.

The blonde glanced up from where she had been reading to regard him with a look of feigned innocence. 

“Your shirt?” she replied, chin lifted defiantly as he crossed the room. **“You mean** **_our_ ** **shirt?”**

“I don’t remember that being a communal shirt,” he said amusedly, tugging the towel wrapped around his hips absently as he walked across the room to lean down and planted one hand on either side of her.

Elliot tilted her face so that when he leaned down, their noses brushed. “Well,” she murmured, “ _clearly_ it is.”

“Can’t believe I’m gone for a twenty-minute shower and you missed me so much you put my shirt on.” He reached up and thumbed absently at the seam of the shirt where the first button was actually done-up. “It’s cute, hellcat.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she replied without any heat. “That’s not why I put it on. If you guess right, you can have it back.”

“Wanted to smell like me?” he offered. John brushed his nose along her collarbone; she _did_ smell a little like him, shampoo and a bit like his cologne, thanks to the shirt.

“Try again.”

“ _Desperate_ to get my attention,” John suggested, enjoying the way her pulse fluttered under his mouth. “It worked, if that’s what you were doing.”

“Still wrong.” She squirmed back a little bit so that she could look at him, her gaze sharp and playful, the tiniest smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Compelled to have me with you, always.”

A quick laugh swept out of her. “Wrong again.”

He arched a brow loftily at her and said, “Tell me, then.”

Elliot pressed her lips together, almost like she didn’t want to tell him—and maybe she didn’t; she’d always liked these moments that she could lord something over him, really dangle it just out of his reach, and he didn’t think that he’d have complained about it too much anyway.

As she regarded him admiringly, she said, “So you can’t put it back _on,”_ so lightly, so without intention, that if John had not been zeroed in on her, the flirtation would have gone straight over his head.

When it _did_ finally stick, he grinned wickedly, and she looked so pleased with herself that he couldn’t have imagined the revelation coming about any differently.

“Sneaky,” John purred, leaning down and kissing her. “You don’t have to abscond with my clothes if you want to get a good look at me, you know. You only have to _ask.”_

“I like this better,” Elliot replied lightly as he pulled away. “I might consider letting you have it if you ask me nicely.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded sagely; as soon as John opened his mouth to cloy her with a dramatic rendition of a “please”, there came a hefty knock at the door. 

“John,” Jacob said through the door, his voice edging on something dangerous, “I hope you’re dead in there, and not just keeping us all waiting.”

John exhaled a sharp breath. He reached up to tug at the buttons of the shirt, but Elliot swatted his hands away.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Jacob’s going to come storming in here.”

“I said,” Elliot replied, “ _ask.”_

“You—” He stopped, hearing Jacob’s impatient muttering on the other side of the door, and then turned his gaze back to her. “ _Please_ give me my shirt back.”

“Hm.” The blonde cocked her head. “No.”

Jacob banged on the door again.

“Fuck _off,”_ John groaned, coming to a stand. “I’m coming, Jacob, just hold on one second—”

It took about fifteen seconds, not one, for John to frantically dress himself as much as he could, all while Elliot spent that fifteen seconds leisurely in his shirt. Was it less cute when she was being a little tyrant? He couldn’t decide.

John said, “You’re going to regret this little trick of yours,” as he yanked one of her sweatshirts over his head. It barely fit.

“I don’t think so,” Elliot replied amusedly, watching him squirm around in the sweatshirt that was probably a size or two too small for him. “It’s the trick that doesn’t stop giving. _”_

“ _Fuck. You,”_ John said, even if the sight of her curled up in his shirt made something possessive and warm bloom in his chest.

When he opened the door, Jacob was standing there, arms crossed over his chest. “Ah, well, the prodigal son finally—” The redhead's eyes first took in the too-small sweater, and then over John’s shoulder, Elliot: swallowed up in his shirt, snuggled up half-way beneath the blanket of the bed with her book.

Jacob’s gaze returned to his. He barked out a short, sharp laugh. “What the fuck is this?”

“Well,” John began, prepared to fully detail the torture that he had just been subject to, “it’s really—”

“Stop.” Jacob lifted a hand. “I’m already tired of it. Just—whatever, just what the fuck ever, let’s go.” He gestured for John to go on ahead of him, glancing back into the bunkhouse. “Deputy.”

John heard her call, as the door closed, “Bye, boys,” and he thought maybe she was just a bit more treacherous than she let on after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taken from [this list](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/post/635140686059044864/prompt-list-1)! John/Elliot: “I love you.” “Tell me that when you’re sober.” + “Is that blood?” “Yes but that doesn’t matter right now, what does matter is-” “You are literally bleeding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tangentially related to [Ancient Names,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290244) but only in theory and probably not in practice.
> 
> Catch me on my [tumblr @proudspires](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/) actin the fool : ' ) I'm pretty much always open for prompts!

The door to the chapel swung open, rattling in a violent wind that had ripped straight through. John saw Jacob’s tall, broad-shouldered form push through the doorway first, followed by Elliot, tiny in comparison.

“Sit,” Jacob barked, pointing at the pew closest to the door. Elliot wheezed.

“F-Fucking—I’m _trying_ —”

“What’s going on?” John demanded. He pulled away from where he’d been talking with Joseph at the head of the church to start walking back, picking up urgency when he saw Elliot clutching her shoulder. As she shrugged out of her soaked jacket, he saw her hand pull away bright and crimson. **“Is that** **_blood?”_ **

**“Yes,”** Elliot said, sitting idly while Jacob tore the neck of her shirt to free up space around her shoulder, **“but that doesn’t matter right now, what does matter is** —”

 **“You are literally bleeding.** All over—Elliot, what the _fuck_ ,” John snapped, wondering why she seemed to be so calm and collected about the apparent open cut seeping blood out of her shoulder. It was a jagged, wicked-looking thing. “What happened?”

The blonde pushed the hair from her face as Jacob inspected the wound. “Ran into our friends,” she managed out, coughing and wincing, “nasty guy with a big knife.” 

John waited for more. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Elliot mumbled, failing to elaborate and instead responding to what she seemed to think was him asking a question about her well-being. And sure, yeah, John _was_ concerned about it, but less with Jacob beckoning for a medkit. 

This close, he could see her eyes flickering absently, slightly dazed—and another wave of incredulity and anger swept over him.

“Are you _on something?”_

“I shoved a couple of painkillers in her mouth. She wouldn’t shut up while I was trying to pull her out of the truck,” Jacob explained without looking up. “I don’t think they hit anything important when they stuck you.”

“Oh,” Elliot breathed. “Nice.”

“ _Yeah, fucking nice!”_

“John,” Joseph cautioned, having walked up to peer over his shoulder at the trouble, “you’re not being a very productive member of the situation.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said, “shut up or go have your meltdown somewhere else.”

“So loud,” she muttered, words slurring as they tumbled out of her mouth. “Can you s-stitch me or what?”

“It’s not gonna be pretty.”

No one seemed to really be taking the situation very seriously at this point, but John could not bring himself to kick up any more of a fuss considering that Elliot and Jacob, for once, were behaving themselves in the face of their temporary blood-induced truce. 

And his brother was right—it _wasn’t_ pretty. Even with the painkillers in her system, Elliot hissed and bit out swears as he worked, trying especially hard not to look like it was really bothering her even when it was.

“Get me another p-painkiller,” Elliot said when Jacob had finished the fourth stitch and she was grinding out something vicious under her breath. He’d moved around to the other side of the pew to sit on her non-wounded side; her hand was gripping his arm, nails digging in through the fabric of his shirt. 

“I can get you Bliss,” John replied, his eyes not lifting from Jacob’s work. It was nearly done, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. “Can’t take anymore oxy, Elliot.”

“Eat shit,” the blonde wheezed.

“It’s either take the Bliss or suffer,” he said flatly.

“I’ll s-suffer—”

“ _Stop,”_ Jacob snapped, “ _moving.”_

It went like that for a little while: Elliot biting out curses, trying to stay as still as she could before Jacob finished the job, cleaning and wrapping the wound as best he could before he said something along the lines of _that’s as good as it’s gonna get,_ and John managed to haul Elliot across the yard to the bunkhouse without getting absolutely soaked.

She’d been asleep for only an hour before the discomfort woke her again, and she _finally_ relented to some Bliss to take the edge off—“The tiniest fucking amount, John”—which she took with no absence of complaint. 

Thirty minutes after _that_ , she was an entirely different woman.

“So tired,” Elliot murmured, shifting, the bandage job on her shoulder rustling and reminding him of how pissed off she’d just been. “Hate this stuff. Sucks.”

“I know.” John rolled his eyes, sat in a chair pulled up next to the bed. “What were you thinking? Trying to handle that guy on your own? Really idiotic, you know, even for you.”

“Stupid,” she slurred. Her fingers absently skimmed his lower lip. “Dumb idiot John.”

“No,” John replied tartly, unsure whether drugged Elliot or pissed off Elliot was worse, “ _you’re_ the dumb idiot who—”

“Love you.” She said it tiredly, patting his cheek, like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t just said the most ridiculous thing in the entire fucking world.

And it _was_ the most ridiculous thing. Elliot didn’t like saying anything that she thought might stroke his ego, or make him feel quite pleased with himself, and that meant she went out of her way to make him work hard for the compliments she _did_ give him. Even when affection came easier to her now—it wouldn’t have been Elliot if she wasn’t mouthing off.

John said very intelligently, “What?”

She rolled her eyes. **“I love you,”** she reiterated, but the words _were_ blurring together, and John wasn’t sure that she actually knew what she was saying.

It did seem awfully dramatic—a profession of love after a traumatic experience—and it would be just like her to try and drop a bomb on him like that, out of nowhere, for fun. To fuck with him. Because she could.

 **“Tell me that when you’re sober,”** he said at last, catching her hand with his. She frowned.

“No, you.”

“No, me, _what?”_ he sighed as she swatted his hand away from her own, retreating under the blankets.

Elliot’s eyes flickered tiredly. With all of the determination he thought she could muster, she said, “No, you tell _me_ when _you’re_ sober.”

It was his turn to roll _his_ eyes now. “Go to sleep, El.”

“Tryin’,” she protested, and made a low noise of complaint when he brushed the hair from her face. “Won’t stop touching me.”

“ _Goodnight,_ Elliot.”

She was quiet for a minute, pulling the blanket up to her chin and not protesting when he leaned against the bed to get more comfortable.

“Night, John.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taken from [this list](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/post/635140686059044864/prompt-list-1)! John/Elliot: “Is the weight of your sins too heavy?” + “Are you flirting with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theoretically set prior to the events of [Ancient Names,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25290244) if you squint. Really hard.
> 
> Catch me on my [tumblr @proudspires](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/) actin the fool : ' ) I'm pretty much always open for prompts!

“You look troubled, deputy,” John drawled from the window of his expensive, sporty car —the kind which was not driven in Hope County unless it was passing through, and which she had seen enough times to know was his.

Elliot wasn’t  _ stupid. _ She  _ knew _ John Seed—or Duncan, or whoever and whatever he was—it didn’t matter, because she knew him. She knew his type. She’d met him once, in a bar, and he might not have remembered her: but she sure as fuck remembered him.

“You blew through two red lights, Mr. Seed,” Elliot replied flatly. “I find that troubling.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all.” She could see his eyes squint behind the blue of his sunglasses as he tried to read her last name. “Have we met before, Deputy… Honeysett? That’s a nice last name. Sounds  _ sweet. _ ”

Elliot pushed her own sunglasses down on her nose, one arm propped up against the frame of the car as she stared at John. He flashed what she could only assume to be his most charming smile, and she thought,  _ Fucking Seed boys. _

“You were also driving thirty miles over the speed limit,” she continued, as though he hadn’t said anything to her at all, and she pulled her hand off of his car to start detailing his criminal offenses. It was unfortunate someone couldn’t be ticketed for being handsome and a fuckhead at the same time, she thought absently. “That’s two red lights in addition to speeding, so that’ll be five hundred and ninety-two dollars, Mr. Seed.”

_ “Pardon?  _ There’s no way that a fucking speeding ticket is five hundred dollars.”

“I’ll speak slowly so that you understand,” Elliot snapped. “ _ Two _ red lights is forty-eight dollars per light. Speeding thirty miles over the speed limit is two hundred dollars—”

“That is not nearly  _ six hundred dollars _ —”

“—but when you speed in a  _ school zone,” _ she finished, “you get ticketed double the standard amount. Five hundred and ninety two dollars.” Her gaze flickered down to his lap. “And you haven’t got your seatbelt on. I’m afraid that’s an additional one hundred and twenty-four dollars, Mr. Seed, which brings you to a  _ remarkable _ seven hundred and sixteen dollars.”

John scoffed, and when she slapped the ticket into his hand, he pushed his glasses up onto his head to look at her. “You really  _ are _ troubled, aren’t you?” he sighed. “So tired. Shouldering a burden you shouldn’t have to. I’m certain you don’t enjoy this. So what is it, then?” A dark brow arched loftily at her.  **“Is the weight of your sins too heavy?”**

There was something wicked about the way he said it, purring the words at her, pretty like an oil-slick and twice as poisonous; he was  _ certainly _ maintaining too much eye contact for her to take his words as a genuine interest in her immortal soul and what sins it might have been bearing.

“Mr. Seed,” Elliot said, carefully punching each word on the way out of her mouth,  **“are you flirting with me?”**

That half-cocked grin split right across his face again, and he tossed the ticket onto his passenger seat before he leaned up to his window a little. John’s gaze traveled over her once, very deliberately, before he said, “Is it working?”

_ A little, _ she thought absently,  _ but not enough to get you out of this mess, you fucker. _

“Bribing an officer is a felony,” she replied, offering him her best smile. “So, you tell me.  _ Is _ it?”

John’s expression flattened. His lips pressed together and he sighed. “Just a little friendly, small-town banter, Deputy Honeysett,” he remarked casually. “Don’t take it so seriously.”

“I won’t.” She straightened up, slapping the top of his car once. “Have a pleasant afternoon.”

“I  _ do _ know you,” John said suddenly, when she had started to turn away. “From the bar, a year ago, wasn’t it? You’re friends with that…” He snapped his fingers as he tried to remember. “Well, anyway, I remember you. Hard not to, when we had such a strong instant connection, don’t you think?”

Elliot felt embarrassment crawl up her throat. Popping her sunglasses back up on her nose, she gritted her teeth and called over her shoulder, “Mr. Seed, you’re wrong. I  _ love _ writing tickets. If you’d like to continue giving me a chance to do what I’d love, you’re more than welcome to, but if not I suggest you carry on with your day.”  _ Fucker. _

“Sure thing, deputy!” His voice was a thousand times lighter than it had been, delighted at his having remembered her, at knowing that there had been some kind of connection between them once, many moons ago.  _ If he thinks that’s going to get him out of shit,  _ she thought,  _ he’s in trouble. _ “It was  _ lovely _ seeing you again.”

Elliot slid into the driver’s side of her car, slamming the door and watching as John slowly pulled off of the side of the street.

“Can’t say the feeling’s mutual,” she muttered, tapping a cigarette out of the carton. “Fuckhead.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Things you were afraid to say" + John/Elliot, Christmas No-Cult AU where John is a royal fuckhead all the time because what else would he be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts found [here](https://proudspires.tumblr.com/post/636974640585113600/jcndeukies-prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2), and I am almost always taking prompts on my tumblr @proudspires : ' ) Help me procrastinate! (sort of)
> 
> I will probably have more Christmas No/Pre-Cult AU things coming up, some have been brewing in my head for QUITE a while!

It was exactly the time of year that John Seed liked to come and get in her way.

Elliot was not a woman easily won over, especially after a break up; these things were gravely permanent to her, sometimes in a fatalistic way that Joey often said was too hard to be constructive anymore. The only exception to the rule had been John Seed—wealthy, spoiled lawyer who spent maybe a little too much time in front of a mirror to be the kind of guy that Elliot usually went for. They had dated on and off non-seriously for a few months, and then “seriously” (which Elliot always put in quotes, because the only person who seemed to take it serious was _her_ ) for another six months, followed by a series of get-togethers and break-ups that were instigated by both sides in equal amounts.

So, yes; John Seed was not the kind of man that Elliot usually went for—and this meant that he was the exception to all of her rules, across the board.

His favorite time to come sweeping back in was the holidays. She had her theories as to why; they included, namely, that John would be attending family dinners with his brothers and sister, and couldn’t stand the idea that he’d be showing up alone. He also knew that Elliot’s mother would be hounding her to come and celebrate Christmas at her house—which was _fine_ (“fine”), but made her acutely aware of the parental failings of her absentee father and alcoholic mother.

This was why as soon as Elliot opened the front door of her house and saw John standing there in his stupid turtleneck and dumb fucking shades, and he said, “Hey there, beautiful,” she slammed the door in his face.

Or rather, tried to; John knew her as well as she did him, now, and he jammed one booted foot into the way before the door could get closed. There was that infuriatingly charming, boyish grin on his face. “Was it something I said?”

“More your existence in my space,” Elliot snipped back, narrowing her eyes. “If anyone else stuck their foot in my door they’d be incapacitated.”

“I know,” John said in the way that she hated—because he was right. He _did_ know. “But you wouldn’t do that to me.”

Elliot made a non-committal noise, to leave room for uncertainty. John hesitated, just for a second, and he inched his knee past the door.

“Invite me in, baby, it’s freezing out,” he purred. Elliot hated the way that his voice made her skin prickle with a strange anticipation, a craving. It was why John had become her exception; everything he did, his pet names and the way his hands had to always be on her, reverent, covetous—they were things she had never known that she wanted until John did them, and now if anyone else did those things, they felt cheap. _Nothing like the real deal,_ John had said once, when she’d muttered it into his neck at night.

“What are you, a vampire?” Elliot scoffed. “Use your two grown man legs and walk in yourself.”

“Just trying to be polite.”

She released the pressure she was holding on the door and let him in; a chilly breeze had wafted in, bringing with it some dredges of snow as well, and goosebumps prickled along her skin. John shut the door behind him, shrugging out of his coat, taking a quick glance around the living room. The details of her evening were laid out quite clear; a bottle of wine, a barely-touched bowl of popcorn, the paused Christmas movie on the TV. As soon as he stepped out of his shoes and sidled after her, Boomer barked from his bed in delight. His tail wagged excitedly, but he waited—ever obedient—until Elliot said, “Alright, then,” and he went racing to John.

“Exciting night?” John asked casually, knelt down to rub Boomer’s ears with as much politeness as he could muster. “I see you’ve invested yourself into _Hallmark Christmas_.” The words left his mouth with a degree of disdain, which was not lost on her. Stupid fucker couldn’t resist being a pompous asshole even in her own house, huh?

“Actually, yes, I was having a very nice evening,” she huffed, tucking her legs up under her as she settled on the couch. He laughed, giving Boomer a few of the big pats that the dog really liked and she continued, “What do you want, John?”

The question made the brunette pause. He looked frustratingly attractive, in his black turtle neck and slacks, his shades tucked up into his hair. He came and sat next to her on the couch; Elliot turned so that her back was against the arm and she was facing him head-on. No room for shenanigans.

“I miss you, El,” John said, and she groaned, rolling her eyes.

“Shut the fuck _up_.” Her cheeks felt red already; the earnestness in his voice was enough to make her heart stutter painfully in her chest. “You don’t know how many times you’ve said those exact words to me in this exact situation—”

“Four or five,” he admitted. He propped his arm up on the top of her knee and leaned into her a little bit, until her eyes narrowed. “Don’t look at me like that. Didn’t you miss me too?”

_Yes,_ she thought, but the idea of saying the words out loud made her stomach lurch with dread. It was too easy for John to do that to her—plunge her straight into the kinds of things that wadded the fear up high and desperate in her throat, things like _I missed you_ and _I want you_ and _I love you_.

So she didn’t say any of those things, even though they were all certainly true and even though she certainly felt them, regardless of whether they were broken up or not. Instead, she said, “What is there to miss, John Seed?”

_Of course I missed you._

One of his hands went to cover his heart. The silver rings that he favored glittered, reminding her that she had also never liked a man who accessorized quite like John, either, until he’d come along. Now, she found herself hopelessly attracted to brunettes with ear piercings and Gucci shades and silver rings and tattoos that answered to the name _John._

“Elliot Honeysett, you’ve mortally wounded me. I hope you’re happy with yourself.” He leaned back against the couch, watching her with his eyes—infuriatingly blue—before he cracked that boyish grin at her. “I mean it, El, I _did_ miss you. I meant it those other times and I mean it now.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. “That’s nice of you to say, but I don’t know what you want me to do with this information.” Warily, she eyed him. “And you are _notorious_ for saying nice things.”

John flashed his teeth in a wolfish grin that did very little to inspire confidence in her. “I _want_ ,” he replied, the pad of his thumb dragging along the inside of her knee, “for you to say it back.”

“No,” Elliot replied instantly, out of instinct. “Fuck you.”

“So prickly.” He leaned in, having sidled between her legs, and reached up; his fingers traced the slope of her jaw. “I know that our _undeniable_ and _instantaneous_ connection is scary for you—”

She warned, “You are within _perfect_ punching range.”

“—but more than anything,” John continued, voice pitching low into a murmur, “all I want is to hear you say you missed me too.”

They were all there, inside of her—collected up, gathered up and packed away for later, those things that would have made him happy if she said them. _I missed yous_ and _I love yous_ and _I want yous_. Collecting dust from misuse, because the only person that made her want to say those things was also the person that made her afraid to say them at all.

“El,” John murmured. “I can hear those little gears of your turning.”

“You make me so fucking mad,” she replied, the words trying to stick in her throat on their way out of her mouth. Her chest felt tight; all of the alarm bells in her head kept ringing, screaming at her to stop, but John was close and leaning closer and he was so warm and the smell of his cologne was washing over her and—

It didn’t matter how many times he said the words. They always hit the same chords within her, and they always made her want him with every inch of her being. It was all Elliot really ever wanted; for someone to want her, to crave her, to jealously covet her like she was something to be treasured. John was always very good at that—unpacking her, pulling her thread until she unraveled, to dig down into the nitty-gritty of what she actually wanted the most.

_But Joey,_ Elliot would have to say when inevitably this came up in their next phone call, _he smelled so good when he said it to me, and he called me baby, and held my face the way he knows I like_.

“I did,” she managed out, feeling that little adrenaline-drop she got every time she let herself even start thinking about saying something like this to him, like the plunge of a rollercoaster. “Of course I missed you, you fuckhead.”

John leaned in and kissed her, and she could feel him grinning against her mouth; his fingers carded through her hair and then gripped at the base of her skull so he could kiss her again. _Mistake,_ something in her said. _Big fucking mistake._ But it was too late; she knew how this song and dance went.

“Of course,” he agreed, and sounded quite pleased with himself. “I know how hard it is for you to admit it—”

“I’ll take it back.” She pulled back to narrow her eyes at him, even though she was sure she didn’t look very scary at all, knowing that he could hear how fast her heart was beating. “If I find out you tell one single person—”

“No need,” John assured her against her mouth. “I’ll keep it _just_ between us.”


End file.
